"Why, I sent Tim in to tell the men to come out, as I was going to set off a blast, but he says the men aren't in there. And I'm sure the last shift hasn't come out."
By this time Koku, Mr. Damon and Walter Titus had come up to find out what the trouble was.
"The min have disappeared—that's all there is to it!" Tim said.
"Perhaps they have missed their way—the lights may have gone out, and they might have wandered into some abandoned cutting," suggested Tom.
"There aren't any abandoned cuttin's," declared Tim. "It's a straight bore, not a shaft of any kind. I've looked everywhere, and th' min aren't there I tell ye!"
"Are the lights going?" asked Job. "You might have missed them in the dark, Tim."
"The lights are going all right, Mr. Titus," said the young man in charge of the electrical arrangements. "The dynamo hasn't been stopped to-day."
"Come on, we'll have a look," proposed Walter Titus. "There must be some mistake. Hold back the blast, Tom."
"All right," and the young inventor disconnected the electrical detonating switch. "I'll come along and have a look too," he added. "Don't let anybody meddle with the wires, Jack," he said to the young Englishman who was in charge of the dynamo.
Into the dimly-lit tunnel advanced the party of investigators, with Tim Sullivan in the lead.